beans

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of bean.

   Dried beans need an overnight soak before they will cook through.

   The roaster buys green coffee beans from three farms in the same valley.

   Note

   An ordinary -s plural carries the singular's whole range: the plants, their seeds and pods, and by extension coffee and vanilla beans or the pellets inside a beanbag. The slang meanings work differently. They exist only in the plural and have no singular bean to match. The spelling is also shared with the verb form, so only the sentence shows which one is meant.

2. 2
   nounslangplural

   An insignificant value or amount, chiefly in negative or dismissive expressions.

   In a fast-moving market a verbal agreement isn't worth beans.

   He talks a big game, but he doesn't know beans about cars.

   Similarsquat, zilch, jack

   Note

   The dismissive slang plural lives in negative frames. Something isn't worth beans, or doesn't amount to beans. It can also measure a poor income, as when Scott Tucker wrote in 1981 that he made beans as a writer. The longer hill of beans makes the same shrug, and row of pins does the same job.

3. 3
   nounslangcountableplural

   An animal's paw pads.

   Cat owners post close-ups of toe beans as if they were jewelry.

   Hot pavement can burn a dog's beans in minutes.

   Similarpads

   Note

   Affection is the whole point. The pads are named for their small, rounded look, and the word belongs to the fond talk of pet owners rather than to the clinic. It is plural only. In veterinary or technical writing, paw pads or simply pads is the plain term.

4. 4
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of bean.

   A fastball that beans a hitter can end a career.

   The comic hero beans the villain with a frying pan.

   Note

   Here the spelling belongs to a verb: to hit someone with something thrown, especially a blow to the head, a use that sits beside the slang bean for the head itself. It takes an object, someone on the receiving end: a pitcher beans a batter, never simply beans. Only the sentence separates it from the plural noun.

5. 5
   nounslangvulgarcountableplural

   The testicles.

   A knee to the beans ended the fight before it started.

   The goalie doubled over after the puck caught him right in the beans.

   Similarballs, testicles, bollocks, testes, cojones

   Note

   A kitchen image pressed into vulgar service: the food word borrowed for the anatomy. It is plural only here, so a single one is never a bean, and it keeps its coarse register however lightly it is said. In anything written for a general audience, or in a medical setting, the plain word testicles is the safer choice.

6. 6
   nounslangcountableplural

   Pills; drugs in pill form.

   The song's chorus is about popping beans until the club closes.

   Dealers sold the beans by the handful outside the venue.

   Similarpills, tablets

   Note

   Here the word is street slang, and it travels with one verb above all: to pop beans is to swallow them. It belongs to urban speech, not the pharmacy; a doctor prescribes tablets, never beans. The plural is the usual form, naming a handful or a habit rather than a single prescribed dose, so a reader meets it in song lyrics and street talk far more often than in print.

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